Thoughts on being the weakest link

Ok, I admit it: I am the weakest link when it comes to exercise. I grow easily bored with exercise and tend to take A LOT of breaks.

My husband, on the other hand, has been doing yoga for going on 8 years.

In high school, I ran cross-country and track and played soccer for a couple of years. After moving to California, I did quite a few 5K and 10K road races. Those were fun, and running was a good form of exercise for me, but I grew bored with it about 5 (or more) years ago. Now I can hardly force myself to run around the block.


Since then, I've been doing a myriad of exercise types. I did step aerobics and Jazzercise...then I became addicted to ab workouts, for a while anyway.

These days, I tend to exercise a few months on and a few months off. Truth be told, I'd love to find some form of exercise that can be done while sitting on the couch and watching tv with minimal effort.

But...working out is necessary to stay in shape. In the words of Kevin Spacey's character Lester Burnham in the movie American Beauty (when asked what kind of workout he's looking for - increased strength and flexibility or weight loss):

I want to look good naked!

(Is that too much to ask...?)

For the past year, I've done several 6-week boot camp style workout sessions. Despite the twice a week workouts that started at the butt crack of dawn 6:45 am (ack!), I enjoyed the variety of the workouts we did, and I also liked how the instructor's style was less military-esque and more laid back.

The latest boot camp session started up again a few weeks ago, and because I liked the class so much, I signed up again. But...what I didn't know was that the instructor would be changing in this session.

So...I showed up at the first class in the new session sleepy but ready to work out. Admittedly, I was running a little late that morning because I woke up late AND because there was some construction on the way. So I MAY have been a teensy weensy bit late to class. Even so, I'm not sure the 20 push-ups she made me do were...justified. But I sucked it up and did the push-ups anyway without complaining. (Which, incidentally, my husband thinks is hilarious because, if you ask him, he'll tell a story about the tennis classes we once took and how I "refused" to let the instructor tell me how to improve my form...but that's beside the point.) I even tried to ignore it when the boot camp instructor took more of a military approach to the workout and counted each rep waaaay too fast.

But it was difficult to ignore the soreness I felt in my back muscles later in the day after working out and then how it got worse. And there was no ignoring that I had to stay home when even ice didn't alleviate the pain. If you've ever hurt your back, then you know how debilitating it is.

A week later, my back wasn't 100% recovered, but it was at least back in decent shape. Call me crazy, but I thought it best not to continue the current boot camp session. (I know every instructor is different...so maybe this new instructor and I just didn't "fit" well together?)

Ever since my husband started yoga, he's been trying to get me to try it...so the post-boot-camp/back-break me caved and signed up for a month of classes at a yoga studio. My logic behind taking yoga is that it's all about stretching, so it HAS to be good for strengthening my back.

It's only been 6 days, and I've already taken both Power and Bikram classes (both of which are challenging when done in a heated room!), and the studio still offers several other types of classes that I haven't even tried yet. I've seen and heard that people get in amazing shape through yoga, so I'm just hoping it's the right "fit" for me.

If not, there's always Zumba...